Pick up almost any survey, from Pew to JD Power and you will find that deposit account fees are a significant driver of customer satisfaction. Often it is a major factor in choosing or leaving a bank. Unfortunately, many banks set their fees according to where their competitors are. If your bank does this understand that it is based on the fact that your competitors know what they are doing. The logic also presupposes that you are exactly like your competitor in terms of customer, geography, goals and strategy ..read more

We estimate that approximately 80% of all banks in the country do not have a commercial loan pricing model that adjusts for credit risk, the shape of the yield curve, acquisition costs, maintenance costs, or relationship revenue. However, banks do not need a loan pricing model to eliminate the biggest mistake commonly committed today on commercial loan pricing ..read more

There are a handful of banks in this nation that really know their small business or commercial customer. They say they are about service and they actually walk the walk. They deliver superior service compared to the competition and they put the customer in the middle of everything they do ..read more

Capital markets move quickly, and last week the 10-year Treasury yield did not just increase, but it increased by almost 20 basis points in one day. Many pundits and economists will be writing about the cause and impact of rising rates. They will note how the market is now pricing interest rate hikes by the end of 2022 and how inflation is expected to accelerate on the back of fiscal stimulus ..read more

In the past (HERE), we highlighted how an employee handbook can have a colossal impact on culture that can radically alter your bank’s trajectory. We talked about how culture alone allowed Zingerman’s, a little Michigan deli, to have a worldwide following. We showed employee handbook examples from Netflix, Zappos and Nordstrom to demonstrate how their cultural tone can be leveraged into a strategic difference ..read more

A tool that every banker should have at their disposal is the ability to figure out what a statistically valid sample size is from a given population (calculator at the bottom). A simple everyday example is in the case where examiners are coming in and you want to be sure all your wires are BSA compliant ..read more

If you’re a bank that keeps a loan pipeline report, chances are you have some excellent data that will form the basis of making your bank more efficient. Of the key performance indicators (KPI), tracking length of time to close, approval rates, fall out rates and lost rates are likely on the top of your list to manage to. In this article, we look at some typical rates, what they might mean for your bank and how to improve the ever-important throughput ..read more

Why do some banks grind it out and struggle to produce a 9% return on equity ("ROE"), while other banks such as Bank of America and Chase produce 20% plus ROE for the same business segment? One answer is that banks that produce an above-average ROE either have a more profitable customer segment focus, more profitable products, or a more profitable business model ..read more

January is typically a slow month for loan production at community banks, and the pandemic-hampered economy made the month even more challenging for many banks. The data from the Federal Reserve’s H.8 report showed that all loans were essentially flat in January for banks ..read more

Our first indication of industry performance for 4Q comes to us in the form of earnings disclosures from the top 24 banks. In this article, we break down five lessons learned from analyzing large bank performance for the fourth quarter (4Q) of 2020 compared to 2019 and see how we can turn this data into actionable insights to improve community bank performance.   One: Small Is Beautiful   ..read more